Betta Ehrenfeld Public Policy Forum in Damariscotta

Date

June 30, 2016

Category

Newspaper Articles

Tags

The Lincoln County News

About This Project

Betta Ehrenfeld Public Policy
Forum in Damariscotta
In this presidential election year,
the nation faces a crisis of confidence
in the democracy. This summer,
the Frances Perkins Center’s third
annual Betta Ehrenfeld Public
Policy Forum will feature William
Leuchtenburg, William Rand Kenan
Jr. professor emeritus of history at
the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill; and Nick Penniman,
co-author with Wendell Potter
of “Nation on the Take: I–low Big
Money Corrupts our Democracy
and What Wee Can Do About It.”
The forum will take place at 4 p.m.,
Tuesday, July 12 at the Round Top
Farm’s Darrows Barn, 3 Round Top
Lane, Damariscotta.
The forum will include an
interactive discussion of the extent
to which dark money has permeated
the government and an exploration
of constructive suggestions about
what ordinary citizens can do
about it. The discussion will be
moderated by John Rauh of New
Castle, N. H., a businessman,
former candidate for U. S. Senate,
and founder of Americans for
Campaign Reform, an organization
advocating for public financing of
federal campaigns.
Leuchtenburg is the preeminent
scholar of the New Deal and the
presidency of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt. He has written more
than two dozen books on 20th
century American history, his
most recent being “The American
President: From Teddy Roosevelt
to Bill Clinton.” Leuchtenburg will
describe how big money came to
invade political campaigns and
government.
Penniman is a journalist and
the executive director of Issue
One, a Washington, D.C.-based
nonprofit whose mission it is to
Bill Leuchtenburg
reduce the influence
of money
in politics. Moyers & Company’s
Michael Winship calls “Nation on
the Take” “a stunning indictment
of the corrosive influence of money
in politics.” The New York Journal
of Books said that “‘Nation on the
Take’ is breathtaking in the level
of detail for Washington K Street
transgressions and the national
landscape of politics and money.
If one is still on the sidelines for a
personal campaign to restore the
democracy, this book will incite
a riot in one’s conscience and
illustrate some things people can
do to take back this country. This
book is no less than a clarion call to
the American people to rise up and
release these ties that bind.”
Tickets for the Betta Ehrenfeld
Public Policy Forum are $35 per
person and may be ordered online
at francesperkinscenter.org (under
“events”) or by calling the center
at 563-3374. A reception will follow
the forum.